The Human Rights Act has no teeth, there are too many Members of Parliament and Bermuda's voting system is "still unfair'', Progressive Labour Party organiser Mr. Roosevelt Brown claimed yesterday.

But Mr. Brown, who was honoured with one of two first-ever Human Rights Commission awards on Sunday night, hopes his party will eventually fix those things.

Mr. Brown was honoured for bringing about universal franchise by helping get rid of the voting system of the past which only allowed property owners to vote.

He was also instrumental in getting the voting age lowered to 18.

Mr. Brown, an ecological engineer who specialises in rural development world-wide, said Government officials can abuse your rights and there is nothing you can do.

"Under the current Human Rights Bill people outside Government can be taken to task, but Government can't,'' he said, claiming the United Bermuda Party was "preventing the Bill from having teeth''.

He said businessman Mr. Roger Davidson would not have been able to pursue a complaint he made this year to the Human Rights Commission about Tourism Minister the Hon. Jim Woolridge's "little white boys'' comment.

Mr. Brown also said he believed there were too many MPs for Bermuda's size.

"There are countries with much larger populations than Bermuda but with less MPs,'' he said. He said there should be one MP per constituency instead of two.

He echoed former National Liberal Party MP Mr. Walter Brangman's comments in this newspaper yesterday that there is inequity in voting districts with five now having more than 2,000 voters compared to the five smallest constituencies which each have fewer than 1,400 registered voters.

There should be a voting system where one person has one vote -- instead of two votes -- and constituencies are equal in size, he suggested.

Mr. Brown also pointed out it was the PLP's youth wing which he founded that was instrumental in getting the voting age lowered from 21 to 18.

Mr. Brown said he helped bring about universal franchise through educating Bermudianss and giving "everyone a chance to speak and be heard whether they were for or against universal suffrage''.

He organised town meetings Island-wide in the 1960s to raise resident's consciousness of how unfair the voting system was.

"I made sure there were MPs, all-women and youth panels at the meetings,'' he said, recalling how they "grew bigger and bigger'' until the law was changed before the 1968 elections.

CAMPAIGNERS -- Mr. Roosevelt Brown, right, and the Hon. Robert Barritt, who received human rights awards on Sunday, discuss the issue with The Royal Gazette here.